I think that some of you are going to like this one ;D
Enjoy!

Signs of betrayal

Loivissa POV(summer of 644 ADG)
It was the height of summer. A fresh breeze drifted in from the east and the apple trees in the terrace in front of their headquarters were in bloom. The apples themselves were not quite ripe yet, but Loivissa nonetheless liked to spend her time lounging in the green branches whenever she had the time for it.

There was a certain tranquillity to being up here, one that she had not experienced for centuries. The notion was a strange one in Loivissa's mind, as she had experienced four centuries of relative peace between the 2nd Ra'zac War and now, and yet she had still felt more at ease during these years of upheaval than she had during the time of peace.

It is the clarity, she realized, that is what I was missing during all those years. During the peaceful years, I was mentally caught between the past and the present, but after Mercury showed his true nature, I have learned to let go of the past that troubled me.

The realization made her chuckle silently at the sheer incredulousness of it all. Here they were, losing one battle after another against their opponent, and yet she had managed to find solace in it all. If that was not something to be concerned about, then she did not know what was.

Out of habit, she picked one of the not quite ripe apples from a branch and bit into it. It tasted sour and was quite firm, but it was still nice to just get something to chew on. For a moment, Loivissa thought of beginning the process of pickling the apples, but she eventually threw the thought out from her mind.

They still need a little bit more to be ready for that, she mused, and besides, it is such a lovely summer day, so why spoil it with having to do chores.

The members of Aiedail had gotten so much more time on their hands since Loivissa had banned all activities that did not directly relate to gathering supplies or the materials that Rhunön needed. Well, most of them had been banned from doing such things, but Loivissa still sent Dweyrn and her dragon, Augms, out on missions every so often, and the newest member, Elwing, was busy with gathering intelligence at court.

Loivissa also made periodic trips to Ilirea, but they were always as short as possible. No one but her brother knew why she made the trips. The rest of them thought that she was travelling to other areas of the country entirely.

Her real reason for visiting Ilirea as often as she did was because she was slowly but surely trying to win over Ilumëo to side with them. So far, it was beginning to show great signs of working, and Loivissa had finally been able to imprint upon the aide that her treachery was now so great that she could never escape from it if she did not make sure that they won.

Trying to make her see the error in her master's ways was a more complicated matter entirely, but there was some progress in that field as well. Loivissa had managed to make Ilumëo recognize the horror in some of the more gruesome of her master's actions, though the aide had constantly defended the actions by saying that they were necessary. The confessions were not much, but they were still some, and sooner or later, Loivissa was certain that Ilumëo would realize the folly of her master.

The conversions were just one of the secrets that were kept from the majority of Aiedail's members. It had not originally been intended as such. No, at the start, her brother and she had simply figured that it was impractical for every member to know of every plan and mission that they had on the board, but it was not so anymore.

Now they had to keep certain information from being revealed.

Just like how I have to keep your origin a secret too, Loivissa thought and studied the way the sun's rays reflected off of her lapis lazuli ring.

Ilumëo had recently revealed to her, though Loivissa had had to get her a bit inebriated to get her tongue rolling, that Mercury had a spy in their midst. The aide had said that she did not know the name of the spy, and Loivissa believed her, as it was evident that the aide would not lie about something like that after revealing the existence of the spy in the first place.

It would certainly explain how Mercury had always seemed to remain one step ahead of them lately. Still, the mere idea that a spy had somehow managed to sneak their way into Aiedail had been completely absent from Loivissa's mind until she had been told of it.

Every single one of those that had come into Aiedail had had a burning desire for vengeance when they had joined, and Loivissa did not know how such a strong emotion could somehow be turned around without any of them noticing any changes.

It has to be recently that the spy has made contact, but who is it?, Loivissa mused as she turned the apple core in her hand, who can I even trust anymore?

Though she had not wished for it to come to this, she knew that even her brother had to be equally much of a suspect as everyone else. It had taken her countless sleepless nights of turning and twisting, before she had finally acknowledged that it simply had to be so.

In a bizarre way, it was funny that the only one that Loivissa could be completely certain was not the spy was Ilumëo herself. What was the world coming to when the only one that you could trust the nature of was the one person that you knew would sell you out without a second thought if it meant an out for her?

I cannot even make any official inquiries into the matter without alerting Mercury of my knowledge of the spy, Loivissa mused sadly, but there are other ways to smoke one out…

She had already begun the process, though she had had to be extra careful to not make it appear as such. It was a tricky process, and doubly so when she could not even confide in a single member of Aiedail what the true purpose of it was.

In the meantime, she would continue milking Ilumëo for information and continue pretending to the others that nothing was wrong, even though the truth was far from it. It was a cat and mouse game, where she was the mouse that would lose more than a bit of fur if she was careless.

There was no reasonable chance that he did not know where they were, considering that the spy had to have surrendered the location of their headquarters as one of the first things. For whatever reason though, he had not marched on them yet, and had in fact shown no signs of wanting to do so.

There must be something that he wants from us, Loivissa realized, it has to be something that he could not get by himself, so he is willing to bide his time.

It would be like him to utilize even his own enemies in furthering his goals. After all, it was exactly what he had done with the cutthroats that had betrayed Alagaësia for simple coin during the invasion. And once they had outlived their usefulness to him, he had had them removed as well.

But what is our usefulness to him, and how do I prevent it from disappearing?, Loivissa thought long and hard on it, before the answer suddenly struck her, he wants the dauthdaert! He wants it for some purpose, but he knows that he has no hope of having anyone but Rhunön repair it.

Yes, that had to be it, because after all, he had been ready to move Rhunön at a moment's notice back when they stole the dauthdaert in the first place, but after they stole her away from under his nose as well, his hopes of restoring it had been dashed.

That line of thought opened up a new can of worms for Loivissa, as she now had to make sure that Rhunön seemingly kept working on it, even though the elven smith had recently told her that she would be done with the dauthdaert within a few months.

Can I risk trusting Rhunön to not be the spy?, Loivissa mused, do I even have a choice? If Rhunön is the spy, then Mercury will know the moment that it is completed, no matter what I do. Furthermore, if Rhunön is the spy, then why even go through this bother to repair it, when they could just come and claim it and her at the same time?

Yes, there was no sensible reason that would indicate that Rhunön was the spy, but then again, there was no sensible reason that would indicate any single one of the others either. This was why Loivissa hated dealing with the paranoia-inducing topic that was traitors in her own ranks. No matter what you did, you would never again feel completely safe with trusting anyone of your comrades ever again.

The flapping of wings broke her musings, and when she looked up, Loivissa saw Augms descend quickly, dangerously so, into the courtyard that was next to the terrace that she was in. As swift and agile as a cat, she leapt from her branch and sprinted over to see what had made the dragon so upset.

It did not take long before she noticed exactly what it was, and when she did, she quickened her pace twofold and mentally contacted her brother and Lifael and told them to come out immediately with their medical supplies.

"It was a trap", Dweyrn said through gritted teeth, "they knew that we were coming".

She had her left arm in a sling, and Loivissa could see the ends of what looked like a bandage underneath it. Both dragon and rider looked completely spent, and Augms was even loudly out of breath, so it was clear that he had likely not gotten any rest.

He cannot have, Loivissa surmised on her way to meet the pair, the ambush was supposed to happen three days ago, and it is at least six days from there to here on dragon back.

The dwarven rider slowly let herself slide down her dragon's front leg, where Loivissa stood ready to catch her. Despite her protests, Loivissa managed to get the dwarf to lie down and take it easy. It was at this point that Lifael, Rhunön and Evandar all came to watch the scene unfold.

Evandar wasted no time and immediately ordered Lifael to start boiling some of their wine, while Loivissa tentatively started removing the sling and the bandage beneath it. It was clear that both had been made by Dweyrn with what materials had been at hand at the time.

"Lord Tahu?", Loivissa questioned as she continued peeling away the bandages with dried blood in them.

"Dead", the dwarf woman answered, "the bastards nearly got me too. Damn crossbow wielding- arrgh".

Whatever she had been about to say was stopped midsentence when Loivissa had started poking around in the wound that the bolt had left behind in the shoulder. It looked to be two or three days old, and though the dwarf had clearly not had the strength to heal it completely, she had still managed to stop the bleeding and prevent it from festering.

"Did you get the whole bolt out?", Loivissa asked calmly. It would be troublesome to open up the wound again to remove a shard, but not as troublesome as if the shard was left in there.

"Aye, I am pretty sure that I did", Dweyrn nodded with clenched teeth.

"Good, we will sanitize the wound and then heal it properly. Brother, give her something to bite on", Loivissa commanded, and after the dwarf had gotten some leather between her teeth, Loivissa poured the wine upon her wound and checked once more to make sure that no rot was present, before she healed it completely with magic.

After the deed was done, Loivissa felt very tired, but she still had to keep her head focussed. She asked Lifael to take Dweyrn up to her room and make sure that she recovered completely, even though there should be no trouble with doing so now.

She then had Evandar make sure that Augms was taken care of, before she sent Rhunön back to work. After everyone was gone, she could finally allow herself to breathe a tired sigh. Her plan had done what she had wanted of it, but the price had been high, nearly too high.

The raid that Dweyrn, Augms and Lord Tahu had been on had in actuality been nothing but a ploy to narrow down her search for the spy, though everyone else thought it was to get new supplies for Rhunön. Beside the three that had gone on the raid, there had only been two people that had known of it beforehand.

One of them had been Lifael, and the other had been Lord Elwing. The plan had been that if nothing had happened during the raid, then the spy could have been one of the ones that were to attend it or one that did not know of it. If something happened however, then it could only have been one that knew of it, but which did not participate in it.

She now knew that the spy had to be one of the two that had known of the raid, but not which one, and she could not arrange for something similar anytime soon without revealing her intentions. Still, she had not expected that the ploy would cost her Lord Tahu, and nearly Dweyrn as well.

At least now I know that I can trust Rhunön to fake continuing to work on the dauthdaert, she mused as she continued to stare at the red blotch where the wine had impacted with the ground, and I know that Ilumëo was telling the truth in regards to the spy.

The other members of Aiedail would have likely praised her for gaining this knowledge, but she could not tell them. Secrets were after all easier at keeping the fewer that knew of them.

Ilumëo POV(late fall of 296 AA)
It was an ordinary day in every aspect of the word. The sky was dripping, but not pouring, and nothing important had really happened for a while. It was the kind of day that one could get used to.

Her lord could not though. He was impatient. That much, Ilumëo knew from her everyday interactions with him, but there was nothing that he could do to hasten his goal, and so, he had to settle for patience. If it was not because she knew what his final goal was, she would almost find the impatience sweet.

It fleshed him out a bit more, and made it easier for her to believe that he had once been human, though it was something that you could never say to him directly. When she had inherited the job many years ago, one of his first demands of her had been that she could never call him human.

As the years of service had passed by, she had slowly come to understand why he would not have himself referred to as a human. Humans were plentiful, they were physically weaker than many other races and above all else, they were subject to a mortal life, which signalled that if one tried hard enough, Mercury could be killed as well.

She had also discovered that if humans identified you as one of their own, then they would become much angrier with you for slaying a kinsman of theirs than they otherwise would have, though Ilumëo had no idea of why that was.

Currently, she was walking with a stack of documents destined for Mercury's desk, but there was nothing exciting or even remotely interesting in the stack. Still, they had to be done, and as the acting archduke of the Albion province, it fell on Mercury's shoulders to do so.

A quick nod to each of the Varangian guards outside of his door was all it took for her to walk right in. No one else had such a privilege, and no one else had Mercury's undivided trust either. It was something that he had made abundantly clear quite early on; he could only trust aides past and present.

"Hello Ilumëo, anything besides the usual?", Mercury greeted her when she walked inside.

"No, just tax records, building permits, land dispute and the rest of the usual", Ilumëo shrugged as she laid the stack on his desk.

She was just about to leave again when Mercury stopped her with a single command. It was something that had always intrigued Ilumëo in the start; how he could completely and utterly control the fate of someone with nothing more than a few words.

"I actually have something for you", Mercury said and drew a sealed letter from a drawer in his desk, "the Tribunal finally approved of the last bits of paperwork and sent their reply. It arrived earlier today, and I had it brought to me immediately, so that I could surprise you with it in person".

It was with trembling fingers that Ilumëo accepted the offered letter, and though she knew that she eventually had to, it was very tempting not to open it. The seal of the Tribunal was engraved upon the red wax that sealed the envelope shut, and she knew that once it was broken, there was no way that it could be sealed again. The enchantments of the seal made sure of that.

Slowly, she broke the seal and drew forth the papers inside. They were written with ornate letters in the alphabet that had originally belonged to the dökkálfar race, which was now the common alphabet of the entire Alliance.

The words themselves held little meaning to Ilumëo, as she could not bring herself to read them, but she knew the precise meaning of them as well as the one that had written the letter. In it, the Tribunal congratulated her on her new title and responsibilities that went with it.

"I am now the archduchess of Albion", Ilumëo breathed, "it seems so unreal".

"That is because it is, at least until I am no longer here", Mercury said with a shrug, "do not thank me though. Your new station simply means that your family now has to consider who its children marry in the future, and if I have to be honest, I have always hated the job of running a country".

To Ilumëo, it still seemed overwhelming that this piece of paper, this one piece of paper, would end the mutually beneficial relationship that Mercury and her family had had for 400 years. It had never been a secret amongst the varying nobles of the Alliance that though the Uluth family was incredibly influential, they had no power of their own.

All that they had, and all that they were, had always come from Mercury. When the arrangement had been struck with the first of the Uluth family, they had been forbidden from ever gaining titles in one way or the other.

Provinces in the Alliance were often far vaster than the various kingdoms that had been absorbed into them, and that made the ruling family of the province that much more powerful and influential as well. And this one document now signified her as the archduchess of the newest province, which was set to be declared stable as the very first thing in the new year.

"Are you sure that this is the right time to do this?", Ilumëo said, already dreading the answer.

"Yes, my endgame is finally coming to its inevitable conclusion, and I will have no need of your services from there on", Mercury answered, "if you are concerned that I am rewarding you with more than you deserve, then you are mistaken. I have taken advantage of your family for four centuries, and compared with your faithful service throughout those years, my gifts to you seem petty and small".

His speech did not do anything but further stir up the unease in Ilumëo's stomach. She was helping Loivissa in killing him, and she had even recently told Loivissa of the secret tunnel that led into the south-western part of Ilirea, which Mercury no longer had guards standing watch over.

The idea of Mercury dead was still a foreign one to her. It seemed so unreal and farfetched that it had to be something only a madman would suggest. Or a scorned woman. Mercury was Mercury, and that was what he had always been.

He had been there at her birth and at the birth of her child. For him to be leading the forces of the Alliance felt as natural to most of its population as the fact that the sun set in the west and rose in the east…but now that had to change.

...His endgame…I have to make sure that Loivissa succeeds, Ilumëo thought deeply troubled, he has to die. He deserves to die…

400 years was a very long time, and throughout those 400 years, her family had served him and helped him orchestrate much that was evil but necessary and much that was not so. His hands were stained with far more blood than any other figure in history had ever had, and there was also It to consider as well.

This body, which he wore right now, was nothing more than a layer of clothing to him. It was a layer designed to fool those around him into not realizing the true nature of what he was, but Ilumëo knew. Every aide in her family had known the terrible secret since its creation 339 years ago.

"Are you alright, Ilumëo? You look rather pale", Mercury asked from behind his desk.

"No, it is, I am fine", Ilumëo answered nervously, "it was just the thought that now that you are giving me this, your endgame must be close at hand".

"Yes, it is", Mercury agreed, "it is a day that I have been patiently waiting for for 400 years, and yet now, I feel real impatience for the first time in so long that I have almost forgotten what it feels like. It is not actually a feeling that I am all that fond of, but I had to choose something during my duel with It, and it was either this or love, and I did not feel very up to letting It play with THAT emotion".

Though Ilumëo could not boast that she understood the concept to its fullest, she did know that every time that Mercury had to duel with It and create a new body for himself, he was forced to relinquish control of a part of his mind to It.

Whatever he sacrificed had to be large enough to feed the growing entity within his mind for enough time to allow him to rearrange what remained of his mind into a new fortress, which would keep It contained while he rebuilt his body.

According to him, the sacrifices had been small in the start, but they had quickly grown larger and larger in importance, and for him to allow It to control when he felt impatient was quite a large leap towards their inevitable end, if things were allowed to continue.

"Then I will go write to my mother and tell her to bring my son with her to let him grow up here", Ilumëo excused herself, but as she exited the room, her thoughts constantly revolved around the same three sentences, I must accept it. He deserves to die. Loivissa must succeed.

Hehe, the mystery plot advances and the fire shall come...

Btw, after conversing with one of you that knows one of Mercury's little secrets, I have come to the conclusion that by the end of this story, there might be quite a lot of unanswered questions for those that have not paid scrutinizing attention to the chapters(and even the wording of several important things) as well as understood the...shall we say, plentiful mythology references that actually reveals part of the plot.
In regards to this concern, I am toying with creating a Sidestory chapter at the very end of the series that neatly sums up most of the important bits and pieces of the puzzle that this storyline might be to most, but I would like to hear your views on the idea, as I would also be willing to answer any and all questions regarding the plotline after it has been concluded.